Sleeping Dogs Review
Sleeping Dogs is an open-world action adventure game developed by United Front Games and published by Square Enix.
Sleeping Dogs is perhaps one of the biggest, and certainly most pleasant, gaming surprises of 2012. Its way to the store shelf sure was a hard one. Initially an indie game titled "Black Lotus", it was then changed to "True Crime" and "True Crime: Hong Kong" and was meant to be a reboot of the True Crime series. But due to high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision, its publisher at that time.
Then, on August 2, 2011, Square Enix picked up the publishing rights to the game. However, they only purchased the game itself rather than the True Crime series. Therefore, it was renamed again to "Sleeping Dogs".
In Sleeping Dogs you play as Wei Shen, a Chinese-American who's just returned to his hometown of Hong Kong. He's also an undercover cop with the mission of infiltrating and taking down the Sun On Yee, one of the most powerful Triad organizations. Through the course of the game, Wei must rise up in the ranks of the Triads, gain the trust of his fellow members, and at the same time try not to blow his cover. The story of Sleeping Dogs is like a mix of Hong Kong action films and classic Hollywood undercover cop movies. As the game goes on, Wei begins to question his sense of loyalty as he struggles to maintain his duties as an officer of the law and the code of honor and brotherhood of a Triad member. Although it's certainly not original, Sleeping Dogs' story is engaging enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, with many characters whose uniqe personalities make them very memorable, along with some dramatic twists and turns. And that, in conjunction with top-notch voice acting from an all-star cast, has created an experience unlike any other.
The undercover theme also reflect on the character development. The in-game experience points are split into three kinds: Cop, Triad and Face. Cop points are accumulated based on how you abide the law, destroying public property, harming civilians will lower your overall cop EXP. In contrast, Triad points are rewarded when you perform violent acts on your enemies. The last one, Face, is the representation of your reputation and social status. By doing "favor", requests of the many citizens of Hong Kong, you gain more Face level, which in turn will benefits you in many ways, such as new clothes, new vehicles, or service discounts.
However, what separates Sleeping Dogs from other open-world titles is its gameplay. Like most standard sandbox games, you can go around exploring your city, stealing cars or messing with civilians. But the best parts of the gameplay lie in the combat system. The diffence in Sleeping Dogs is that it emphsizes on hand-to-hand combat rather than gunfights. Similar to Batman: Arkham Asylum's melee combat, you can chain up combos using light and heavy attacks, counter enemies when they're about to strike. It's simple, yet effective. The developers also added a little flair to the combat with the use of environmental attacks. You can grab your opponents at any time during the fight, bring them to the highlighted objects scattered around the map, and watch Wei finish them in a brutal, sometimes gruesome manner. In addition, once Wei deals enough damage, he'll enter Face Mode, intimidating enemies and regaining health. In many open-world games, the combat system is often neglected, so the improvements in Sleeping Dogs are very appreciated.
Shooting, while less dominant than the melee combat, still have some interesting features of its own. You can take cover, blind fire, and vault over obstacle, which will trigger a slo-mo sequence, allowing you to take out multiple foes more quickly.
The driving is also a strong point. United Front Games have really taken advantage of their experience developing ModnationRacer, making driving in Sleeping Dogs feels very arcady and easy to handle. One very cool feature that worth noting is the "Action Hijack". In this mode, Wei can leap from his vehicle to another, effectively remove the driver and take over it, much like in Ubisoft's Wheelman.
All of these elements combine with a solid story and a large variety of side missions offer players 20-plus hours of gameplay experience. Not to mention other activities such as street racing, cock fighting, gambling and karaoke, which will give you a hell lot to do. And although there is no multiplayer mode, the game has a feature called Social Hub, where you can compete with your friends in various category, like: who did the most headshot, who did the longest car jump, who broke the most legs, even who ate the most pork buns.etc. This increase the replay value of the game even more.
No game is completely flawless, and so is Sleeping Dogs. Sometimes there are glitches that make characters float or "slide" in the air, or get stuck in walls. However, they don't affect the progression of the game much and can be ignored. The characters' facial expressions in some cutscenes are a bit too stiff and the enemies' AI is just avarage.
Graphically speaking, Sleeping Dogs is not mind-blowing beautiful, but it still looks good. The atmosphere and authenticity of Hong Kong was portrayed very well. Every buildings, roads, alleys looked really realistic and the night market was fantastic. Everything is just really vibrant and it kinda makes you want to go there and see with your own eyes. Now Square Enix said Sleeping Dogs performs best when played on PC, and it does, which is always a good thing.
Overall, Sleeping Dogs is a great game. While it doesn't have any innovative, ground-breaking ideas, it managed to make full use of elements that were used many times by other games, and add with its own uniqe setting, creating an open-world title that is just on-par with other big names in the genre.
